Contextualising Public (e)Participation in the Governance of the European Union

This paper contextualises the benefits and challenges of participation and eParticipation in the EU in two respects: historically, by reviewing the last decade of legislative and policy initiatives relevant to public participation in European policy-making; and theoretically, by defining the governance regime which operates in the EU and, taking into account the governance 'reform programme' which EU institutions have also laid out, theorising the scope for public participation in this political context. While noting a certain gap or lag between rhetoric and reality, such that participation opportunities remain biased in practice towards structured events, a number of risks are identified in the apparent future strategy of 'listening better' by diffusing participation beyond the 'strong publics' which have hitherto dominated participative policy-making in Europe. These risks are referred to as the 'low benefit high cost' scenario, the 'pathologies of learning', the 'tyranny of light', and the difficulty of targeting marginalised groups, with the need to protect and yet connect 'enclaves' in the European public sphere. The underlying challenge for a network governance regime like the EU is how to maintain a productive tension between system-oriented and actor-driven participation. eParticipation tools may prove useful in this balancing act.

Simon Smith Centre for Digital Citizenship, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds

Efpraxia Dalakiouridou DESS, University of Macedonia Keywords participation, (network) governance, democratic deficit, Plan D, European Public Sphere, enclaves

The pursuit of governmental objectives involves attempts to mobilise the self-governing capacities of individuals, groups and communities, such that 'active citizenship' is normalised as a responsibility as well as a right.

European Journal of ePractice www.epracticejournal.eu N 7 March 2009 ISSN: 1988-625X

1 Introduction
Participation has become something of a mantra in late modern societies. As commonly used by policy-makers, it also goes by a number of near synonyms such as engagement, involvement and empowerment, any of which may be prefaced by an adjective like public or community. Typically, the benefits claimed for participation relate to service effectiveness and efficiency (e.g. more detailed knowledge of the publics needs and wants for service planning), decision-making quality and legitimacy (e.g. generating awareness, acceptance and commitment to policies), or active citizenship (e.g. generating social capital and mobilising peoples voluntary labour, including their intellectual labour for problem-solving purposes). Participation using information and communication technologies (ICT) eParticipation may bring three additional types of benefit: reduced transaction and coordination costs in social and political relationships, greater deliberativeness due to certain qualities of the medium, and the enhanced information-processing capacity of information technology. This paper argues that participation is asked to perform different functions according to the governance context in which it occurs. Ultimately, the benefits of participation can be understood in terms of how its effects change, stabilise or improve a certain governance regime. Having traced the recent history of legislation and policy on citizens participation in the European Union, we attempt to define the governance regime that prevails at the level of the EU, arguing that a network mode of governance provides a reasonable first approximation, and finally we deduce some implications about the role of participation and eParticipation as a governance tool for Europe.

2 Governance
Governance is usually dened in relation to government. Both are about securing the conditions for ordered rule and collective action (Stoker, 1998: 17). However, the growth in popularity of the term governance reects a sense that contemporary transformations (fragmentations) of the state, markets and society have changed the nature of many governing processes, blurring the boundaries between and within public, private and nongovernmental/non-prot sectors and necessitating the formation of more or less diffuse coalitions and partnerships in order to govern, where previously this was achieved through the directive power of central authorities. This gives us a definition that, in one crucial respect, is in conflict with government, since democratic government presumes exactly what democratic governance does its utmost to erode, namely a clear distinction between system and life world (Bang, 2003: 242). Nevertheless this paper retains a somewhat state-centric definition of governance because even if many of the tasks of governing are devolved to non-state actors, the state provides a sense of direction to societal processes. These are defined by strategies (i.e. asymmetrical privileging of some outcomes over others (Jessop, 2003: 108)), and refer to public values which, when fixed in space-time, have the status of 'official norms' within an always temporary but often quite stable state-society settlement, providing some sense of 'steer' to lower-order societal processes, including participation.

3 Participation
Participation, as defined here, relates mainly to inputs to policy- and decision-making for political or public policy purposes, both within formal systems but also through informal systems where these can have a real impact at any stage of the policy lifecycle. Participation will have direct impacts on, and relations to, public policy goals and values like democracy, but it is not understood only in the context of democracy or any other public value. Participation can lead to benefits which take the form of either public or private goods: often the intrinsic benefits are appropriated privately (by participants), whereas the instrumental benefits may be appropriated publicly. In addition to these criteria, this paper is concerned with participation at the European scale. Participation is a defining characteristic of democracy, but two caveats should be added. Firstly, the reverse does not hold true: there is nothing intrinsically democratic about participation or about regimes that promote it as a governance tool. Authoritarian regimes have often been characterised by extremely high levels of participation of one form or another. Public service organisations such as health authorities or social housing providers at the local level, or autonomous regulatory agencies at the EU level, which govern (or co-govern) a specific policy domain, may make use of participatory methods to do so even though they are not democratic bodies in terms of their structures and procedures. Secondly, participation does not lead deterministically to any particular type of democracy, such as direct democracy (with which it is frequently equated). It is just as conceivable, and empirically demonstrable, that participatory methods can bolster representative democracy and undermine direct democracy. In France, for example, Premat (2006, 2008) has shown that some mayors use participatory methods such as online discussion forums to position themselves at critical nodes for the

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translation of citizens demands to the policy-making process and for reconnaissance work among constituents, thus channelling grassroots participatory energy into the formal representative system and obviating the need for more direct forms of democracy.

4 Why do contemporary governance regimes aspire to become participative?

Logically, there are many circumstances in which non-participatory decision-making is legitimate and effective. Participation activities then become low-benefit and high-cost interventions (Irvin & Stansbury, 2004). In the situation described by these authors participation was perceived as unnecessary by the population concerned for a relatively simple policy process (flood management in a small valley), but for more complex issues there is a feeling that increased participation can be one part of a response to the limitations on the state's capacity to direct society and redistribute resources to the same extent that was the norm in the 20th century (in both 'halves' of Europe). 21st century states are attempting instead to enable society to regulate itself and to coordinate a new division of labour between partners from all three sectors in order to achieve collective goals and create public goods and values. They arguably find themselves confronting indeterminate issues and risks requiring exploratory solutions, in an age of unclear rules, unintended consequences and uncertain pay-offs (Jessop, 2003; Peters, 2006). For these reasons, participation is increasingly demanded of us by modern states. The pursuit of governmental objectives involves attempts to mobilise the self-governing capacities of individuals, groups and communities, such that 'active citizenship' is normalised as a responsibility as well as a right. Thus it has been argued that 'advanced liberal government' reserves a major role for the 'technologies of agency' (Dean, 1999: 167-8). Participation has become a moralising discourse (responsible citizens should be active in managing their own risks, and those who cannot need to be empowered to do so), a functional requirement of the post-welfare state (necessary to tap localised knowledge because needs assessment is increasingly undertaken not by bureaucrats but by service users themselves), and a normative discourse (a means to overcome a perceived division between governors and governed in representative regimes (Jessop, 2003: 104)). Empowering people to co-govern and self-govern has become a key governance strategy because unless they are prepared to assume responsibility for and participate actively in solving their own everyday problems, the system stands little chance of being able to connect with them and deliver them the welfare goods they demand (Bang, 2003: 243). There is a potential tension between system-oriented participation (what we might call co-governance) and selfgovernance as the practice of political freedoms on an actor's own terms. Bangs concept of culture governance implies that to utilise peoples self-governing capacities to the full extent, rulers must pay heed to the irreducibility of the 'small tactics' of lay people in the political community for making a difference (Bang, 2003: 248) and link this popular creativity to goal-setting, if only indirectly. This means guaranteeing a space for participation within what Goffman would call back regions of the social system. Participation, as a specific form of social integration, can be thought of as 'regionalised' according to the locales in which it takes place. Each locale acts as a power container, and there exists a hierarchy of locales, through which social and system integration are articulated across time-space (Giddens, 1984). Back regions essentially locales which are distant from power centres resemble Habermas literary public sphere in the sense of being insulated from 1 dominant power relations, both governmental and commercial (Habermas, 1989). Here, participation may be driven by a search for cognitive reassurance rather than the pursuit of interests.

5 The EU's 'democratic deficit'

The term democratic deficit has emerged in connection with the EU, above all to indicate the opaqueness of decision-making (Lebessis & Paterson, 1999). According to the Europa website 2 , The democratic deficit is a concept invoked principally in the argument that the European Union and its various bodies suffer from a lack of democracy and seem inaccessible to the ordinary citizen because their method of operating is so complex. Considerable effort has therefore been invested to create processes of transparency and accountability with regard to the exercise of public power in the EU and its legitimacy. Accountability is considered a source of

Discursive practice in the literary public sphere is insulated from determination by power relations, which is not the same as saying that the two are completely unconnected: the public sphere, as a component of civil society, is always in a fundamental sense in opposition to the power of the state. 2 http://europa.eu/scadplus/glossary/democratic_deficit_en.htm

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legitimacy which the EU institutions are highly dependent on. Transparency is perceived as a necessary condition for democracy, as it ensures that citizens obtain all the information they need to call public authorities to account. Legitimacy demonstrates the capacity of European institutions to provide a system of good governance and fulfil their functions in an impartial manner. Citizens and other actors reflexively assess both the processes and the outputs of governance in terms of their legitimacy. Yet the relationship between these variables is quite complex (see Tsoukas 1997, Diamandouros, 2006, Lebessis and Paterson, 1997). Measures already taken to promote transparency and accountability by EU institutions might seem to provide citizens with more opportunities to be informed, but in reality citizens feel scarcely able to shape their future as Europeans, resulting in largely passive expressions of citizenship (Dalakiouridou, Tambouris & Tarabanis, 2008). In fact, the term 'democratic deficit' often masks an unjustified presupposition that the EU should follow similar democratic practices to those found in national arenas.... [when in fact] a legitimate and democratic Union may involve innovations for which there are no precedents in national experiences of democratic politics. (Lord, 2000: 21) These innovations could include forging links between a listening Commission and citizens or their formal and informal advocates. It was in this spirit that the European Constitution was introduced as an instrument to bolster legitimacy and support for the EU, and it was intended to politicize and democratize the EU in a way that encouraged a shared sense of citizen engagement in a common project (Moravcsik, 2006). The same author argues, however, that there is no empirical evidence to verify that greater political participation would result in greater institutional trust and political legitimacy. As we have already cautioned against the temptation to elide the concepts of participation and democracy, these limits to expected causalities should not surprise us. This paper is not seeking a solution to the EU's 'democratic deficit', although concern about the latter is clearly an important contextual factor in discussing participation. Concern with transparency is more directly relevant, since it would seem to constitute a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for democracy and participation alike. Below we outline how a fuller understanding of governance in the EU indicates some ways in which participation, combined with a certain level of transparency, might contribute to regime legitimation. First, however, we trace the recent history of legislation and policy on citizens participation in the European Union.

6 EU legislation and policy on participation and eParticipation

In this section we investigate the legal constituencies embedded in primary and secondary legislation, followed by a review of policy documents that appear to be relevant to aspects of citizen empowerment. 3 In the discussion that follows we refer to the institutional milestones concerning citizens' participation, transparency, openness, accountability and legitimacy. The EUs primary legislation appears to address the issue of participation indirectly, as no references are made to participatory democracy until the Treaty of Lisbon. The Treaty on the European Union, the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Treaty of Nice anchor representative democracy through political parties and the rights of European citizens to address petitions to the European Parliament. However, the Treaty of Amsterdam fortifies the notion of transparency and the basis for consultations. It is clearly stipulated that The Commission should consult widely before proposing legislation and, whenever appropriate, publish consultation documents, except in cases of particular urgency or confidentiality, and some of the policy documents discussed below formulate the functional basis for consultations. It is in 2004, with the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe 4 that the democratic foundations of the EU are delineated, as the principles of democratic equality, representative democracy and participatory democracy are included. The Treaty also inaugurates the right of initiative of citizens, according to which a specified number of citizens can invite the Commission to initiate specific legislation. The Treaty was drafted in an awkward period where the democratic deficit had become a concern and the response in the Treaty was to underline that decisions should be taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to citizens, as an endeavour to bridge the communicative gap between the institutions and citizens. Nonetheless, citizen participation is still captured on a representative level, as each citizen is heard through political parties.

3 The second and third pillar of the European Union are ignored, as well as other sources of EU law, such as agreements or negotiations with third parties or other preparatory acts. The primary tool of research is EUROLEX which enabled access to legal documents. 4 We note that the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was rejected and the Treaty of Lisbon has not been ratified as of January 2009, but we treat these documents as public statements of the values endorsed by a consensusbuilding process within the EU institutions. Indeed the use of a Convention to draft the former makes it a good example of the outputs of deliberation in strong publics.

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Finally, the Treaty of Lisbon confirms democratic equality, as all citizens are given equal attention from the Union, representative democracy through enhanced rights for national parliaments, and participatory democracy based on the citizens initiative and enhanced interaction with the institutions. No specific or extended references are made to the realisation of participatory democracy on a practical level. Secondary legislation does not incorporate nor institutionalise the notion of citizens participation, notwithstanding stand alone decisions which reaffirm the right of access to documents. Another partial exception was the 'Europe for citizens' programme decision which envisages the strengthening of European citizenship, enabling citizens to partake in the construction of Europe. Although the Treaties provide the legal basis for citizen engagement and the status of democracy, other policy documents specify and provide the overall framework for achieving the general objectives of the Treaties. The institutional arrangements embodied in the documents analysed below have a particular bearing on accountability, good governance, transparency and legitimacy. Citizens participation, however, only became evident after 2001, and eParticipation was explicitly mentioned in 2007 as the Commission began to realize the participatory potential of ICT. (Dalakiouridou, Tambouris & Tarabanis, 2008) Until 2000, the predominant view of democracy was implicitly connected to public access to documents which in turn makes the legislative procedure and the institutions responsible for the legislation more accountable and transparent. The first signs of ICT used to foster accountability are expressed in the White Paper on reforming the Commission, in 2000. Further, the Commission, in the Communication on a new framework for co-operation on activities concerning the information and communication policy of the EU in 2001 acknowledges the necessity for Europe to be closer to citizens and overcome barriers related to the general communication strategy of the Commission. The Europa portal and the Europe Direct service are also mentioned as a means to achieve a higher level of communication and enhance citizens' rights to information. Principles of good governance were formulated to address the perceived mistrust of European citizens in the European edifice. The White Paper on European Governance acknowledges the need for greater citizen 5 involvement and openness, and sets out the minimum standards for consultations on EU policies, while national governments remain responsible for nurturing a culture of debate and dialogue as well as improving their own national consultative processes. EU-wide consultations remain limited on the Europa portal while policy formulation is not yet a multi-level partnership. In parallel, the European Commissions Interactive Policy Making online tool emerged, first as a means to analyse the reaction of citizens and enterprises, evaluate existing policies and unite interest groups under a single online panel. Later, however, it was extended to impact assessment and then became the focal point of inclusive consultations at an EU level through the Debate Europe portal. 2005 marked a significant change in communication policies, when the Commission set out the aspiration to effectively communicate EU policies and activities and better connect to citizens. The Action plan to improve Communicating Europe explicitly adopts a 'listening' attitude by pursuing feedback from consultations and other sources. The Commission had been urged for some time to enrich channels of representation and reform its communication strategy to create openness at all stages of policy making (Lebessis & Paterson, 1999). The Action plan focuses on publicity facilities as well as improvements to the Europa portal to support wider communication. Citizen empowerment remains visible only at a conceptual level until 2005, which coincides with the negative referenda on the proposed constitution and the subsequent 'period of reflection' due to the constitutional crisis. Calling for democratic 'renewal', the Commission then adopted Plan D for Democracy, Dialogue and Debate which encompasses a variety of tools to make citizens heard, stimulate debate and generate dialogue on European issues. The majority of actions are clearly orientated around a 'going local' strategy, i.e. relying on member states and local authorities to capture citizens apprehensions (this was seen as its most successful component), but there are also measures to maximize the impact of consultations and develop a new website devoted to debates. Communication channels between institutions and European citizens remain fragmented due to the incapacity of the EU to base its communication strategy on the existence of a genuine European Public Sphere. The 2005 European Communication policy attempts to stimulate the formation of such a public sphere through

5 Also stipulated in the document 'General principles and minimum standards for consultation of interested parties' in 2002. The rationale behind the consultation standards is embedded in the Treaties as previously discussed, which however do not envisage its achievement though ICT.

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communications technologies, such as the creation of citizens fora, virtual meeting places, audiovisual facilities and technologically-enhanced channels of communication. From this point in time, the Your Europe website is consistently promoted as the basic communication vehicle with citizens. Meanwhile, Plan D was revisited in 2006, refocusing on the following components: local 'European public spaces', national round-table debates, support for bottom-up civic initiatives that relate to EU policy goals, and online debate. 6 The Commission has championed citizen consultation and involvement in policy-making, and the use if ICT to achieve this. However, no specific measures were put into place until recently. In 2007, the Communicating Europe in Partnership document re-negotiates citizen empowerment and positions it in a different context. Activities already adopted in the context of Plan D are maintained, but a new Internet strategy now supports audiovisual networks, and pilot information networks to unite stakeholders and other communication tools are promoted to support the creation of a European Public Sphere and to centralise the communication approach, which hitherto relied on local players more than an EU-wide holistic approach. As a follow up, the 'Communicating about Europe via the Internet - engaging the citizens' document begins to demarcate an eParticipation approach, as the Commission starts to build upon the potential of ICT to legitimise the institutions and bridge the gap between the institutions and citizens. The upgrading of the EUROPA portal as a focal point for information and content creation, the enhancement of online communications activities in the Commissions representations and rendering online information easily accessible and broadly 7 comprehensible now complement the existing communications activities. 2008 marks the Commissions intention to invest in the creation of a public sphere by acknowledging the contributing role of the media and the creation of pan-european programmes. Audiovisual media were thus recognised as critically important to citizens' understanding of European politics. Last but not least, Plan D was reformulated (and renamed Debate Europe after the Commission's dedicated Plan D website) to better listen to citizens and better explain EU politics. Transparency and access to information is recognised as the first step to citizen participation, as access to information renders citizens better informed and better equipped to participate, debate and deliberate on EU issues. Participatory democracy is now approached indirectly at a local, regional, national and cross-border level through the development of specific Plan D-funded projects. A clear eParticipation follow up to Plan D is intended to further enable citizens to articulate their wishes to decision makers by holding direct debates, interactive fora, European public spaces, additional Internet debates etc. In summary, from 2000 onwards, the documents adopted by the Commission relate to transparency and accountability, while from 2002, consultations are given more prominence as a citizen contribution to the policy making cycle. Some less formal and less static forms of interaction with civil society have been emphasised in policy documents since 2005, in keeping with the Plan D motto of 'listening better', and ICT is heralded as an important tool for 'listening' institutions. In fact, the practical efforts made by the Commission appear to correspond to the working definition of eDemocracy made by the European Parliament, as including all electronic means of communication that enable and empower citizens in the effort to hold politicians accountable for their actions in the public realm, thereby increasing the transparency of the political process, enhancing the direct involvement of citizens and improving the quality of opinion formation by opening new spaces of information and deliberation (Kies, Mendez & Schmitter, 2003). Citizen participation in the democratic process is conceptualised around the citizen who is informed and empowered to make his/her voice heard and participate in consultations or other structured events, rather than active and spontaneous contribution to the policy making cycle.

7 The EU as a network governance regime and the scope for participation

Governance regimes are always hybridised, mixing elements of hierarchical, market-based and network modes of governance. So the governance regime which currently exists within the European Union contains elements of market-based modes of governance, for example to regulate the ICT sector itself, wherein a combination of state metagovernance and market coordination is held to be the most transparent solution feasible given the complex organisation of the sector which transcends national and even European jurisdictions (Felch, 2006). Elements of hierarchical modes of governance also persist in the European political system, notably concerning

6 Information note from Vice President Wallstrm to the Commission, Plan D - Wider and deeper Debate on Europe (2006). 7 For the first time, a clear budget line is given to the Internet toolbox to assist the realisation of Plan D.

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the role of the European Parliament, whose powers and popular legitimacy are, however, much lower than most national parliaments. A strong argument can be made that network governance has always featured prominently in the coordination of social and economic activity at the level of the EU, both in respect of the pooling of sovereignty between member states, and more particularly with regard to the involvement of nonstate actors in policy-making, including the establishment of committees (the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions) designed to strengthen the role of civic opinion in decision making 8 . This structure is essentially corporatist, which Streeck & Schmitter (1991) consider to be a variety of network arrangements, and one of its most notable features has been what amounts to the chartering by EU institutions of peak level interest organisations 9 , and the role they have assumed in legitimising EU policy making within a system of 'bargaining democracy' and dispersed power. This nurtured an intensive, if not very extensive form of participative policy-making, revolving around 'strong publics' (Eriksen & Fossum, 2002). A leitmotif of the discussions around the preparation and consultation of the White Paper on European Governance was the idea that the European Union was not yet networked enough in the light of changing conditions and fresh challenges, notably enlargement, and a general aspiration was expressed to reach out to citizens. It nevertheless remains the case that organised civil society is given a pivotal intermediary role, such that, for example, the transnational discussion processes that took place under Plan D from 2005 to 2007 as well as the recently-launched European Citizens' Consultations project have been managed by civil society organisations, enabling the Commission to speak of consultations held by civil society as one of its new governance tools (COM(2008)158/4). It is important to note that what is being delegated through most of the EC's policy networks is problem-solving capacity rather than decision-making authority 10 (Eriksen & Fossum, 2002: 409). Hitherto this delegation has been to strong publics such as committees, consultative fora and, since 1999, specially-chartered conventions. Latterly the attempt has been to diffuse problem-solving capacity within the general public sphere. If this is the case, there are twin risks in such a strategy. The first one is the low benefit high cost scenario: does the governance process require a high level of participation for effective functioning, and is there a social demand for it? Capturing the attention of an audience (a prerequisite for any participatory process) is more complicated than merely staging a performance (Curtin, 2007). Given a lack of popular enthusiasm for 'European' affairs and the EU project, there is a risk of misinterpreting citizens' motivations to participate by failing to make sufficiently clear links between the European problems citizens are being asked to help solve and the everyday problems of the lifeworld which are likely to preoccupy them most of the time. The re-scoping of the Debate Europe website to allow citizens more choice about the subjects for debate could be interpreted as a positive development in this light, since it promises to increase network governance capacity by relaxing central control over the participation process. The corollary, however, is an increased potential for conflict within networks about the rules as well as the outcomes of cooperation (Davies, 2005). The second risk is what Eder (2007) calls the pathology of learning. If we assume that a relatively high level of participation is desirable within network modes of governance, then this is so to the extent that they facilitate collective learning. That is what networks are good at. But by the same token they are vulnerable to failure if an imbalance develops between participation and deliberation. Eder cites the fascist state as an extreme example of the expansion of participation at the expense of deliberation (one person deliberates and the entire society participates in living out the leaders wise policies). The reverse situation too much deliberation with too little participation is also a pathology of learning, since it will likewise reduce the problem-solving capacity of networks. Lieber raises this concern in relation to the European Parliament: it will only be successful in taking on the role of a hub in the public sphere, which it has recently begun to stake out, on the condition that MEPs and citizens learn to learn mutually from each other (Lieber, 2007: 277).

8 The European Economic and Social Committee has existed since the Treaty of Rome. It is the institutionalised representative of organised civil society, whose representatives (nominated by member states for their experience and knowledge) form opinions on Community policy proposals and other aspects of European integration via a deliberative process. The Committee of the Regions, established by the Treaty of Maastricht, is the political assembly that provides local and regional authorities with an input, via consultation, whenever new proposals are made in areas that have repercussions at regional or local level. 9 And more recently also 'political foundations' affiliated to European political parties under regulation (EC) No. 1524/2007, which have an awareness-raising and 'citizen training' brief. 10 This is in keeping with a network governance approach, in which knowledge production and circulation assumes a more prominent place in the repertoire of governing than the actual taking and implementing of collective decisions and choices (Pinson, 2003).

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Similar tensions exists around transparency, which is a prerequisite for participation, but not in the sense that 'maximum transparency produces maximum participation'. The logic of the EC's transparency initiative (which in practice involves publishing details of policy processes online and codifying the terms of participation in its policy networks) is to expose strong publics to the gaze of the general public. One difficulty here occurs due to the irreducibility of many types of knowledge to the types of objectified information (such as indicators, targets and benchmarks) which authorities tend to emit in the name of greater transparency. This can lead to a 'tyranny of light' under which the real needs of citizens are obscured by decontextualised, quantifiable indicators of societal 'need' (Tsoukas, 1997). Another difficulty in making governance processes more transparent is identifying, addressing and mobilising some of the stakeholders who need to participate in the more complex division of labour of a network mode of governance, but may not themselves realise that they need to do so. The current phase of Debate Europe stresses the importance of targeting women and young people, groups which were under-represented in the pilot phase (though it provides little guidance about how to do so). Yet participation by some excluded social groups may actually be less likely in a more transparent environment and more likely in enclaves that are not exposed to publicity. Moreover, given that much public debate on Europe is inevitably filtered through national media and framed with reference to national interests, whereas there are well-founded doubts about the level of public interest in affairs which are constructed as European, it is important to consider ways of improving the quality of deliberation on Europe within national 'enclaves'. eParticipation is demonstrably good at facilitating enclave deliberation, which is usually interpreted as an anti-deliberative feature of the Internet (Wilhelm, 2000: 13) but can be a positive factor for democracy under some conditions, especially with a view to 11 social inclusion.

8 Conclusion
In any hybridised governance regime there will be a need for different modes of participation and eParticipation in different spheres of activity or policy areas. Market-based modes of participation (the citizen acting as a 'consumer' or service user, exercising choice between predefined options) are relevant for mobilising and aggregating opinion among the diffuse general public beyond the Brussels-centric policy networks, whereas hierarchical modes of participation (the citizen as elector/constituent) could strengthen democratic accountability the EU's achilles heel by promoting forms of participation (i.e. vertical interaction) that link parliamentarians to their constituents and accentuate the former's intermediary role. But insofar as network governance features prominently in the EU governance regime, this characterisation also disguises a need for varied modes and locales of participation. Organised groups still dominate the significant policy networks within the EU, but their role has become wider and more flexible. They play the multiple roles of supplier of expert knowledge, unofficial opposition in a consensus-based political system, agent of popular legitimacy and source of demands for more participation. Referring to the role of civil society organisations in the Plan D process, the Commission calls them multipliers and disseminators through their political and media networks (COM(2008)158/4). It is notable, however, that European institutions do not yet make much use of, and have not really developed policies about how to link to participation and eParticipation processes hosted by third parties such as media organisations (where considerable public debate about European affairs goes on). Thus there remains a tension between the chartering or co-opting of networks by European institutions and a more bottom-up form of networking that starts from and works with the associations of citizens as they emerge and re-group spontaneously. Furthermore, since open and inclusive networks tend to generate conflict, governments are often confronted with the choice of either reimposing hierarchical means of securing compliance with 'system-oriented' goals (which may well undermine trust and therefore subdue participation itself), or not intervening and therefore having to deal with networks which may either pursue goals that conflict with government strategies, or selfdestruct due to indivisible conflicts between stakeholders (Davies 2005). European institutions do not, apparently, have the same power to intervene as national governments, but they do choose both the terms of debate for the participation processes they initiate, and which other networks (whose networks) to partner with.

11 The European Citizens' Consultation portal (www.european-citizens-consultations.eu) is structured according to the principle that debate is best fostered within national 'enclaves' to start with, followed by the subsequent integration of proposals at a face-to-face European Citizens' Summit in Brussels, before the final set of recommendations for policymakers is subjected to further discussion, again within national online 'public spheres'. This tiered model may conceivably facilitate wider participation.

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A dialectical relationship between network and hierarchy (Davies, 2005: 342) will always underlie these choices, necessitating a compromise between conflicting benefits of participation. Our analysis of recent EU policy documents suggests that participation is conceived rather one-dimensionally, based on a particular construction of the citizen, and it lacks an appreciation of the complex spatial and temporal 'regionalisation' of participation as actually practised in European societies. We therefore argue that one of the main challenges for the future lies in ensuring a sufficient diversity of learning environments connected to European policy-making. It is less a question of raising the overall level of participation than of securing the existence of channels for different modes of participation which could complement one another. A key priority should be to create and safeguard a public sphere composed of enclaves in which different kinds of collective learning and problem-solving can thrive (with different access rights and different ways of establishing legitimacy and representativeness). This can be justified from both a bottom-up (actor-oriented) and a top-down (system-oriented) perspective. In the first respect, such a public sphere would allow space for types of participation that actors themselves choose in order to realise autonomous goals oriented towards achieving cognitive reassurance (Pinson, 2003) or 'everyday making' (Bang, 2003). This is crucial for motivating people to participate. The Commission partially recognises this in framing Debate Europe as a way of chang[ing] the perception that EU matters are too abstract and disconnected from the national public sphere to be of interest to citizens (COM(2008)158/4), although the same should apply for other enclaves based around non-national identities. From a top-down perspective, a European public sphere composed of diverse enclaves of participation carries the risk of group polarisation, but this is arguably outweighed by its importance as a means of preserving a repertoire of alternative development paths essential for the long-term ability of social systems to adapt to changing circumstances. eParticipation may be one route towards making more effective links between enclaves. More generally eParticipation tools can bridge between actor-driven and system-oriented 12 modes of participation (as demonstrated empirically by Monnoyer-Smith, 2006 ). In doing so by providing a flexible, multi-channel menu of participation options, including those that emerge in the back regions of the European public sphere it could allay some of the risks connected to a strategy of participatory governance which were highlighted above.

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12 In the case of a public consultation around the choice of site for a third airport for Paris, an online forum proved to be a very effective tool for ordinary citizens to regain some control of the debate (which also helped to widen participation) because it enabled participants to revisit fundamental issues about transport and the environment which had been 'scoped' out of the heavily-orchestrated offline events. Certain technological and cultural affordances of the online environment "favour a redefinition of the subjects [of debate] that actors find pertinent" (Monnoyer-Smith, 2006).

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Irvin, R. & Stansbury, J. (2004). Citizen Participation in Decision Making: Is It Worth the Effort? Public Administration Review, 64 (1), 55-65. Kies, R., Mendez, F. & Schmitter, P. (2003). Evaluation of the use of new technologies in order to facilitate democracy in Europe. European Parliament: Scientific and Technological Options Assessment Series, STOA 116. Jessop, B. (2003). Governance and meta-governance: on reflexivity, requisite variety and requisite irony. In Bang, H. (ed.) Governance as social and political communication, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 101-16. Lebessis, N & Paterson, J. (1997). Evolution in Governance. What lessons for the Commission, a first assessment. European Commission: Forward Studies Unit. Lebessis, N & Paterson, J. (1999). Improving the Effectiveness and Legitimacy of EU Governance, A possible reform agenda for the Commission. European Commission: Forward Studies Unit. Liebert, U. (2007). Transnationalising the public sphere? The European Parliament, promises and anticipations. In Fossum, J. & Schlesinger, P. (eds.) The European Union and the public sphere: a communicative space in the making? London: Routledge, 259-78. Lord, C. (2000). Legitimacy, Democracy and the European Union: when abstract questions become practical policy problems. Policy Paper 03/00, University of Leeds: Department of Politics. Monnoyer-Smith, L. (2006). Etre cratif sous la contrainte. Une analyse des formes nouvelles de la dlibration publique. Le cas DUCSAI. Politix, 75, 75-101. Moravscik, A. (2006). What can we learn from the collapse of the European Constitutional Project. Politische Vierteljahresschrift, 47 (2), 219 241 (part of a forum with Fritz Scharpf, Michael Zuern, Wolfgang Wessels and Anderas Maurer). Peters, B. (2006). Forms of Informality: Identifying Informal Governance in the European Union. Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 7 (1), 25-40. Pinson, G. (2003). Le chantier de recherche de la gouvernance urbaine et la question de la production des savoirs dans et pour l'action. Lien social et Politiques, 50, 39-55. Premat, C. (2006). la recherche dune communaut perdue: les usages de la proximit dans le discours participatif en France. Argumentum, 5, 59-78. Premat, C. (2008). Lusage des nouvelles technologies par les maires franais. COMMposite, 11 (1), 64-86. Stoker, G. (1998). Governance as theory: Five propositions. International Social Science Journal, 50 (155), 17 28. Streeck, W. & Schmitter, P. (1991). Community, market, state and associations? The prospective contribution of interest governance to social order. In Thompson, G., Frances, J., Levaic, R. & Mitchell, J. (Eds.) Markets, Hierarchies & Networks: the coordination of social life, London: Sage, 227-42. Tsoukas, H. (1997). The tyranny of light. The temptations and the paradoxes of the information society. Futures, 29 (9), 827-43. Wilhelm, A. (2000). Democracy in the Digital Age: challenges to political life in cyberspace, London: Routledge. European official documents consulted Primary legislation Articles 138a and 138d of the Treaty of the European Union Official Journal C 224 of 31 August 1992. Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities, Official Journal C 340 of 10 November 1997. Treaty of Nice, amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts, Official Journal C 80 of 10 March 2001. Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, Official Journal C 310 of 16 December 2004. Treaty of Lisbon amending the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty establishing the European Community, Official Journal C 306 of 17 December 2007. Secondary legislation Resolution of the Council and the Ministers of Youth meeting within the Council of 8 February 1999 on youth participation Official Journal C 042 , 17/02/1999 P. 0001 - 0002 2006/957/EC: Council Decision of 18 December 2006 on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Community, of an amendment to the Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters Decision no 1904/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 establishing for the period 2007-2013 the programme Europe for Citizens to promote active European citizenship, OJC L 378/32, Brussels, 27.12.2006 Policy documents

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Authors
Simon Smith Research Associate Centre for Digital Citizenship, Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds S.O.Smith@leeds.ac.uk http://www.epractice.eu/people/13552 Efpraxia Dalakiouridou Researcher DESS, University of Macedonia http://www.epractice.eu/people/12218

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